Thank you for your analysis, david_h. It is difficult, isn't it - the factors surrounding decisions provide their own and often undeniable logic after all, especially when considering the quantitative, yet the qualitative has an I think equally undeniable logic as well. Obviously that has been my angle all along. I must say I find it interesting how - if I'm not mistaken - you and I seem to differ on the ethical weight of pricing sunglasses as opposed to medicines; and at this point I don't have any satisfying resolution to that difference which, to me, presents itself as very stark indeed.

Much to think about and chew on. Will have to chew some more.

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

These conversations always go to interesting places.

A decent three-sentence summation of my own feelings on ethics and morals. YMMV.

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
-Robert Heinlein

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Deartháir don phaidir an port.

Interestingly enough, right about the very time you posted this I came across a previously unknown-to-me statement by Martin Luther King, Jr.:

"There are certain things in our nation and in the world [to] which I am proud to be maladjusted."

I'll remember that one. Fits me to a T.

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

Maybe. I think that if as you say ...
then market forces (influenced by regulators and the law) have free play and ethics don't have much practical relevance. I think ethics are relevant when it comes to the regulators and law makers and the way the drug companies interact with them They could, for example, do something about this: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... 0417032082

Yea, its like you can buy followers on twitter and Instagram. When I see em I report em.

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You don't stop playing when you get old, you get old when you stop playing!
My musical endeavours on my blog https://mymusictree.blogspot.co.uk/

No disagreement there.

From both ends the economic implications are compelling, of course. And of course I keep returning to two things: the cycle of needless waste created by expiration dates that are proving to be far shorter than the reality, and the pollution that waste causes, made even greater by the cycle. Hmm. Maybe that's three things. Anyway, I don't see how anyone could call that sustainable, if you'll forgive the trendyspeak. And then one must ask: Already knowing this, and having known it for a good while, what do the Powers have to say for themselves?

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

Well, I'm confused. Earlier - if I got this right - it seemed to me that buying views and followers was, unethical or no, just something you could do and no one much cared aside from at a personal level. Is it actually against the rules, then? If so, I missed that.

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

It violates Instagram's guidelines so I guess that makes it a legal issue, but also I think its wrong. No-one wants to be spammed

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You don't stop playing when you get old, you get old when you stop playing!
My musical endeavours on my blog https://mymusictree.blogspot.co.uk/

That's the thing though. Is it spamming? I mean, it may well be entirely appropriate content for the people who eventually end up watching it, and getting it to them is surely marketing, isn't it?

But even so, I won't pay for views. It just doesn't feel right. I don't go as far as to call it spamming though. And Instagram ... hmmm ... I am positively aware of at least one company which has gone from nothing to $130m turnover in the space of seven years precisely by paying for views on Instagram, so they obviously don't police it very well, if it's against their rules ...

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"Only connect!"

https://youtu.be/ezbWVysJAOY
https://tapm.bandcamp.com/

Something else I think I've noticed ... but could be in my imagination ...

If I post on here, especially if it's slightly unusual post, the number of hits on both the YouTube video and BandCamp goes up very soon after. I think I might have to start getting more outrageous ...

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"Only connect!"

https://youtu.be/ezbWVysJAOY
https://tapm.bandcamp.com/

You are not checking the hits hourly and plotting graphs, or doing fancy statistics, to look for correlations?

Er ... no ...

Dammit!

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"Only connect!"

https://youtu.be/ezbWVysJAOY
https://tapm.bandcamp.com/

I've thought about sharing this video for a little while. A data scientist talks briefly (5min) about the phenomenon of buying followers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPCpYO18ds4

(If you are into podcasts, I originally learned about buying followers from this episode of Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything. The Podcast is much longer and talks about various other aspects about it such as the risks of not buying followers.)

This presents something I've suspected all along: that manipulating follower numbers has less to do with simple vanity and more to do with what you can get out of appearing to be popular.

What strikes me is that if everyone knows about it, they go along with it anyway. A most curious social phenomenon, don't you think?


It would make an interesting experiment to see how that works in comparison to buying followers.

Perhaps a change of wardrobe?

_________________
"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano